Hello! Im eagerly awaiting my ordered Aivascope, and in the meantime wondering about the character of the lens. Most tests ive seen is with very imperfect lenses, which makes it hard to see what character is from the taking lens, and whats from the scope. Have anyone tested the Aivascope with a very neutral, perfect and accurate lens to try to identify the character of the Aivascope? Does it mute certain colors or shift cool/warm etc? How is the CA, and which colors of abberations does it have? I for instance dont like purple CA, but dont mind yellow/blue/green. Does CA from taking lens and scope mix? Does a lens with very smooth bokeh yeild smoother bokeh with the scope than if youre using a taking lens with busy bokeh? or is the Aivascope glass itself mostly accountable for the look? In other words, to what regard does bokeh of the taking lens take effect with the Aivascope? Since focusing is done with the scope, does it kind of override a lot of the focusing characteristics of the taking lens? Does for example the cats eye shape or perfect Circle shape of the bokeh of the taking lens matter to the Aivascope, or is the Aivascope’s bokeh doing its own thing regardless?

tobiaseek Hey Tobias! All very legit questions which we will try to answer in depth, and we hope down the road others will chime in to add things to this interesting topic. Generally whether you shoot in a all in one anamorphic lens or a anamorphic adapter, there’s always a spherical lens design and cylindrical part. In most Anamorphic lenses which yield the most distinguished anamorphic look the anamorphic element is placed in front, and thus is the first pass when the light comes in, the only thing that sits in front of it (some designs work differently) is the variable diopter. In the case of the Aivascope 1.5X anamorphic adapter focus is done with a variable diopter. The scope is tuned for infinity focus and if you rig it in front of the taking lens you need to make sure the taking lens also is adjusted for infinity focus, which is most of the case not where the infinity marker hits its mark (most taking photography lenses are badly bad focussed), so take a very distant object (1km away) and open up the aperture, use a digital magnify on your monitor and make sure infinity focus is nailed, preferably put some electrical tape around the taking lens, so it stays where its at. (not too much tape because you might want to redo this after a while because things can go off calibration), now its the variable diopter which does all the focussing work. we call this a ‘ single focus solution’ . It sounds like we are drifting away from answering your questions, but its important to have a good understanding of how light enters your optical formula. Because the anamorphic element squeeze’s the image by 2X cilindrical in one direction, the aperture will be oval as well. NOw let’s get this quickly overboard and if you need the exact scientific reason for it make a other topic… 🙂 bokeh works like a squared formula, so even though you desqueeze the 2X image by a number of two, the bokeh is still oval because its affected by a way bigger number (squared) than the 2X forumula. if you would put the anamorphic element behind the conversion point (aperture) it would just be squeezed by 2X as a whole and after desqueezing the aperture will return to a normal round circle. SO anamorphic boke is not 2X but instead squared, and by desquezing it 2X you still have a somewhat oval, depending on the dof the bokeh can look more squared or almost round, this is effected by both the distance to foreground, the focus point, how far away the distant object is, the squeeze ratio of the anamorphic lens, the f stop and of course the focal length of the taking lens. PLease note that the anamorphic lens only produces the squeezed ratio, spherical bokeh is squared in its behaviour, thus a bokeh bubble of a 80mm lens with the same f stop as a 40mm is squared in terms of size, but since the anamorphic lens comes in play its squared with a offset in regard to the squeeze ratio of the lens. Hope this is somewhat understandable. However if you want to render perfect circular (oval) bokeh you need to make sure that your taking lens has a circular aperture, most lenses wide open do have a circular bokeh but once stopping down, the amount of aperture blades and their system (you have different aperture systems, like rounded blades, flower shapes triangles etc.), will determine how circular thus how perfect your ovals will look like. Generally in cinema lens design (look at Cooke) a high aperture count is not really in its tradition and it can effect mtf (sharpness), due to airy rings, refraction , hence most cinema lenses (except lomo standard speeds) will have blocky bokeh once stopped down, but lets leave these discussion in other topics. Generally a lot of photo lenses do have a high blade count including a rounded blade system. The famous 17 blade Helios (originated from biotar 58mm) , are very popular among anamorphic shooters. Generally stopping down on a taking lens will yield the best results when shooting anamorphic, thats because both the diopter (which is designed to work the best for one focal length in the case of the aiva a 50mm) and the anamorphic lens will cut off some high frequencies, by stopping down, you diminish these effects. But once stopping down a lot of lenses are not circular in terms of bokeh anymore. Thats why there are some lenses better for anamorphic shooting than others.. I myself am much more obessed with 3d depth distortion of anamorphic lenses and waterfall bokeh, than perfect circular ovals.. On top of that most anamorhhic lenses have cat eye bokeh (cut of bokeh by the housing ) on the edges, and slanted bokeh (only the ovals are straight in the middle but rotated on the sides) , this is a combined effect of both the anamorphic element and the spherical lens. Due to the amber coating on the Aivascope (both front and back element), the scope will render somewhat warm, especially when a light source hits directly the glass, but again this is a combined feature of the coating of the taking lens and the Aivascope. If a taking lens has green coating, and the aivascope amber, than there will be secundary flares in green. I prefer to use lenses that are either single coated or multicoated with a balanced coat that has magenta green and yellow, and complementaries, that works super sexy together with the aiva. The aivascope doesnt add much chromatic abberations, its a nice design, but generally if your taking lens has a lot of ca, the aivascope might articulate this more. BUt Ca with tha aiva is mostly coming from the taking lens, if you take a taking lens with lack of ca you probably find not much of ca in your footage. \ SO for bokeh, the scope mostly adds a squeeze ratio to your bokeh with a squared law, the same as bokeh works with a spherical lens but with the added squeze ratio of a anamorphic lens in that direction. But due to distortions (barrel mostly) the ovals are kind of messy on most scopes, and the wider you go or the further you put the taking lens away from the scope the more this is pronounced. About the cat eye bokeh which is mostly produced inside the taking lens due to lack of coverage, the fun part here is that when you infinity focus on a lens, the element is as close to the sensor as it can be so mechanicala and optical vignetting are at its worst, if you focus closer with the taking lens (without the scope) the front element is further away and mechanical vignetting is lower, but again, just look for a nice taking lens that has characterstics that you would like to see to leak through in your anamorphic formula, a perfect lens doesnt exist in that regard, and that makes most Anamorphic lens collectors and shooters so obsessed. always on the haunt for that perfect lens! If you happen to have more questions . please shoot! https://gafpagear.com/shop/aivascope-1-5x-anamorphic-adapter/

A lot of great info about anamorphic in general there! Perhaps i wasnt specific enough about bokeh, but one thing i feel is left unanswered is to what degree the scope will change to look of the bokeh (Other than the oval-ness ofc). Heres two examples of smooth vs busy bokeh rendering. The left is very clean, whereas the right has sharp, bright and colored edges. Would the final image with the scope retain this of the bokeh from the taking lens (clean or busy), or does the scope more or less override this with its own character? This next example is about shape image 1 is the aivascope in the left corner on full-frame 16:9 cropped to 2:39 Image 2 is smooth oval shaped bokeh (generic image) Image 3 is the corner of a spherical lens with nice circular bokeh-shape. Could you achieve the look of image 2 (more or less) across the frame with the aivascope paired with a taking lens like in image 3? Or will the scope ultimately sharpen up the top and bottom part of the bokeh balls/ovals like in image 1 regardless? The reason for asking really is control. To know if one could go for a clean or dirty look in terms of bokeh shape with one scope! If the answer is no, i guess a workaround would be sensor crop factors. Shooting fullframe will give you the most vintage look using the entire scope, where as cropping to S35, M43 etc. and compansating with a wider lens would crop out the the corners of the aivascope, leaving you with a cleaner bokeh rendering (and not to mention distortion), right?

tobiaseek Hey tobias in general a scope is altering the bokeh to a certain degree, and indeed not only affecting the shape of the bokeh but also for instance abberations, but I would say its 95% the taking lens and 5% the scope thats altering these characterstics, most of the character of your taking lens will translate through, but ofc it will be distorted both by barrel distortion and uneveness in the squeeze. Generally a wider lens will show more of the scope, and putting the scope further away from your taking lens will yield the same effect. cropping is not really how you should look at it, its in a way 100% true but I think you overcomplicate it. A lens has a certain AOV (angle of view), which is determined by 1focal length 2 sensor size , and of course some lenses don’t cover certain sensor sizes and will vignette. with going full frame (i guess you refer to photography full frame 36X24 which is referred to as lf in cinematography), you not necessarily get more vintage character, the amount of the coverage of the scope is determined by the AOV of the taking lens and the distance from taking lens to scope. In lf a 50mm lens will yield the same coverage as a 35mm in s35, only difference is that the 50mm will have thinner DOF at the same given f stop, but the AOV will be the same. The aivascope starts to bottle neck around 50mm on a LF sensor like 36X24 (or a 24X16 sensor with a 35mm lens), and it depends on the spherical lens design, how good of a coverage you get, some 50mm have a pancake design (look up the 50mm Nikon pancake its beautiful and cheap but low aperture blade count), and that will be ideal in order to get the taking lens a bit closer to the scope. But about every scope will have over compression on the edges and barrel distortion, this will effect in way more oval on the sides, and slanted oval. Even though you could correct side compression in post (you need really good plugins or make custom settings within fusion like I did), but it wont correct bokeh fully due to the previous explained square law of bokeh. In order to get bokeh like in your example 2 you need a slightly longer focal length in LF like a 75-85mm (or 50-65mm in s35). And you need a lens that produces a bokeh without the onion rings or onion skin and the Aivascope will leave it relatively untouched and adds the Waterfall bokeh magic to these bokeh bubbles. I might be able to invite my experienced anamorphic friend Tomas Overtoom, he has a lot more to add!

Jerome Alright, that totally makes sense. Somehow i thought sensor cropping would work, but ofc the aov stays the same when compensating focal lengths! But cool. About pancake lenses. Does them being small matter, or are they recommended because they generally have the front element close to the tip of the lens? Or is how close you can get the front element of the lens to the back of the scope all that really matters?

AIVASCOPE 1.5X | General

Jerome

tobiaseek
If you have a 50mm lens the lens is probably longer than 5 cm yet the focal point (where lines are inverting) is 5 cm. A pancake is much closer in length in relation to the focal length . Look at the scope as a window frame. The closer you get to the window frame the less you see the frame , if you shift to a longer narrow lens this will also help. But still if you take a long focal length and you stand far enough from the window you can still see the frame. Hope this helps.

tobiaseek

Alright alright!

About aperture and sharpness. Could you get a pretty sharp image using a taking lens at a fast aperture like f1.4 with the aivascope, given that the taking lens is tack-sharp at that aperture?

If no, could you work around that with sensor size? (shooting at a slower fstop, yet with equivalent dof with a bigger sensor)

Jerome

tobiaseek
So basically you ask if you can get a similar dof and angle of view by taking a longer focal length a bigger sensor and a deeper f stop?
Yes the same math applies as with spherical lenses.

Watch out for mechanical vignetting . When you take a taking lens with much bigger entrance glass than the Aivascope rear end (aiva rear is 38mm) you get mechanical vignetting. This is a effect which doesn’t result in vignetting (dark corners) but the aivascope will then prevent the taking lens to gather light from its outer edges. Basically giving you the effect when shooting at a deeper f stop.

Can you get a decent image with a 50mm lens at f1.4 on the aiva? Most lenses at f 1.4 are not sharp yet they present themselves as sharp because the contrast between sharp and unsharp is very big so they look sharp by comparison with the bokeh. But if you could have sharp lens the scope and diopter of the scope will take quite a bit of a bite as well. That’s why you never see scopes that perform well below 2.8 . Atlas lenses only sharpen up around f4.0 /f5.6 . If you want I can go a bit more in depth how this works.. generally the aivascopes are considered to be very sharp, I have seen quite a good examples at high f stops which looked nice, field curvature of the taking lens is also a concern look for a tiny ultra sharp taking lens. Leica m lenses are great . The summilux ones. The appearance of sharpness can look different when knowing what your doing. Light can make objects appear completely different, work with high contrast ratios and avoid flares. Hope this helps.

tobiaseek

Jerome

I think you misunderstood what i meant, but with good reason. From my initial testing with the aiva, i was under the impression that it couldnt handle fast apertures. So i assumed - and asked for confirmation, (if that was the case) - would a larger sensor solve that, if you stop the lens down, get equivalent dof, and also a sharper image. This question arose from the thought that the aivascope just couldnt handle fast apertures, which ive found is wrong, so it can be dismissed!

So from another test i just did, there was very little difference between sharpness with and without the scope, at max aperture. I think my previous tests has been somewhat '‘wrong’' due to wrong infinity focus on the taking lens. Taking lens focus seems to be a very delicate thing one has to get right.

Heres a test i just did, left is spherical, right is with aiva. Very impressive indeed! Barely any sharpness difference, just a more pleasing image one could say. No need to blur in post 😛

tobiaseek

One thing i also now noticed, how the CA on the metal with the aiva on this lens has a red/orange hue, reminiscent of halation. Thats cool!

Jerome

tobiaseek hey Tobias, great tests your posting here! Thanx! Yes in general the Aivascope is among the sharpest scopes that exists. Like you said, infinity focus is very important and only the slightest offset can take the bite out of your image. Another potential deal breaker is the variable diopter which is made for only one focal length, namely around 50mm mtf. So if you go much longer (85mm and above) you might need to stop down a bit.
The halation from your last test is indeed reminiscent of film stock halation (due to bounced back light on the film backing which bleeds into the red and sometimes blue layer). Looks super cool! Keep it going.
Can you tell us which taking lens you used for this test?

tobiaseek

Jerome

Thanks! The lens used was a Leica R 50mm f2. The leica r’s have strikingly blue aberrations in highlights, as apposed to the more usual purple. Maybe this has something to do with the shift to red?

The correct way to set infinity focus on the taking lens would be to: point the camera at a distant object like a tree-line or the sky, focus to that and voila, the taking lens is at the correct focus point? Do you have any neat tricks to make that process at bit more streamlined and fast? I guess once youve done it a few times on each lens, you learn where it is, so its not the end of the world.

Some more frames from another day in quarantine! (Leica R taking lenses shot in 1080p aand added post-halation!)

Jerome

tobiaseek
hey Tobias, frames looks lovely even though its just a quarantine situation!
The aivascope adds a bit of red abberations, that’s true its not really a shift of he leicas, its more or less the Aivascope overlaying its abberations.
About infinity focus.. If you have good mechanical lenses (the r lenses are quite good), you don’t suffer from a back lash, so the infinity point is always roughly the same, even though the focus throw and thus the resolution on that throw isn’t enormously. If you want to have perfect infinity, I always recommend to collimate/backfocus your lenses on a lens collimator and make sure that the camera you using is spot on too. By doing so the infinity point can be set to the end (hard stop) of the focus throw, and its then real easy to get accurate infinity focus. Another good option is to set for infinty focus on your camera by opening up the aperture, and find a real distant object (infinity focus at a 50mm at for instance f2.0 is at around 800 meters at least). Then use a lot of electrical tape to fixate the lens, (i prefer electrical tape over gaffer for this), you can always with a bit of alcohol clean of the remains if you happen to take it off. This of course only works when you use your lenses soley for anamorphic work, if you need them without the scope this is ofc not the way to go.
Hope this helps.

petemaj

Hello tobiaseek Just came across your example quarantine pics! Absolutely love the vibe. What camera body are you using?

farqi

Greetings! My name is Farqi. I’m a filmmaker from Indonesia. It was only recently that I found out about the Aivascope 1.5x, and now I’ve got a few questions around my head!

I’m a Sony a7S III user, and I’ve been using the Zeiss Batis 40mm f/2 as my lens of choice. The obvious question here is, will the upcoming amber-coated Aivascope 1.5x work well with my a7S-Batis setup? The Batis lens I mentioned has front threads measuring 67mm in diameter.

Extreme vignetting is my biggest concern so far since I knew that the Aivascope only goes as big as 52mm for the lens mounting part. Or is it 38mm? I haven’t quite understood the ‘connectivity’ between this Aivascope and the taking lens… I’ve never used an anamorphic lens setup before, so please guide me in!

I notice that you pair the Aivascope 1.5x with a Zeiss Contax G 45mm f/2, correct? I saw that the Zeiss Contax G lens has a small front diameter, and that’s why pairing the Aivascope with my Zeiss Batis is a significant mystery for me to crack. Thank you. Warmest regards from all Indonesian filmmakers! 😄

Jerome

hey welcome on our brand new forum.
Vignetting happens in two different ways, optical vignetting which can be seen by dark corners, and mechanical vignetting which happens by reducing amount of transmission. In the last case (mechanical vignetting) that would mean that the aivascope whit its 38mm rear would cover a part of the bigger front element of the batis. If you open a lens fully (aperture) it starts to gather light from the outter edges of the glass which are now obstructed by the aivascope, and probably you will end up with f2.6 or something instead of f2.0 Which is no big deal, because most anamorphic lenses start to struggle with tiny dof.. Lot of people who make diy constructions will produly mention their f stops etc, but truth is that most of the time due to mismatch of rear and front elements that its more likely that its one or two stops less, which both will effect dof and t stop transmission.

About the threads. with the new system of the aivascope which has a LWS rod support we prefer not to screw lenses on the aivascope, but simply slide the Aivascope to the taking lens on the rods, Basically these photo lenses were never designed to take such a big load/torque, and chances are high you will bend (overtime) your taking lens and turn it into a tilt shift lens.
In order to work with the lws system you need 15 mm rods, and a standardized rod system which is suited for your camera and matches the arri lws standard (85mm center rod to center lens), many rod systems exist for the sony as7 that willl do.

Vignetting in terms of dark corners, is cause by either the focal length in relation to the sensor format, or the distance from the taking lens to the aivascope. In orderr to get the widest view one need to know the maximum, of whats possible which wil be 40-45 on your sony a7s and make sure you use lenses that are somewhat pancakes, and reduce the distance between taking lens and aivascope, which can be done in a great manner by using the sliding rods system.

I haven’t used the zeiss batis, but i think it will do fine, but will just loose a bit of transmission, and the good news is that a lens is the best at its center, so best is to gather light from the center instead of sides. But in order to find out one need to do tests.
And yes most prefer small taking lenses, not only for their match with th rear element of the aivascope but also the size of the whole optical path which can sometimes be a bit ridiculous, and making you rig unhandable.

Hope this helps, and if you have any questions please dont hesitate, also check the forum for other aivascope posts.. there are a few.

kiddtech

Is the Kinefinity the only camera that allows for the vertical stretch? just discovered your videos on this one Jerome , excellent work! Wish I could get the Komodo to do that vertical stretch.

Kinoliker

Jerome hey, what’s the largest front filter taking lens you’ve used with the aivascope?

zachwolfe

Hello,

Im hoping to get some information on what people are using for taking lenses with the Aivascope? It would be pretty cool if all of us could make a taking lens database for Aiva on FF & S35 sensors. Im currently shooting with the RED Gemini & Komodo and hoping I can get 3 total focal lengths working on S35 sensor with the Aivascope. Also curious what people are using for a mattebox solution? I own a couple Bright Tangerine Clash 138’s and hoping i can get those to work with a clamp on ring? Thank you in advance for your input!

Jerome

zachwolfe hey Zach, bright tangerine sell these beautiful threaded donut rings 82-114 mm that will work. Or use rods and their beautiful “dark hole” flexible donut.
For taking lenses there are a few important rules. If you want to go wide you need a pancake design + a lens with a front element that doesn’t sit inside the barrel. Therefore cine lenses with non extending fronts are a bad example because when focused to infinity they will sit deep. A 50 lens has its point of conversion at 50mm distance from the sensor, but some designs have a very short build like the nikon pancake 50 1.8, these optical designs work great not only because the front pupil os close to the point of conversion but also because this entrance pupil is quite small, making them look superb with less edge fall off and lens speed being lost by the Aiva acting as a mechanical aperture. (Back element of aiva = 38mm). So look for lenses that have a relatively short optically footprint and housing. But generally a lot of lenses will work. The Komodo has not a very tall sensor. It’s 14.26.if you want to end up in 2.39 you can het away with a 28mm , for instance a olympus zuiko om . Bit watch out once stopped down these lenses will give you stop signs so if your after these hard sought after ovals these lenses might not be your thing stopped down. Amid wide you want to try the cliche helios 442 or the biotar 58 (the version with as many blades) and for your longer focal lengths go for a 80mm biometar. A great lens around lens could be a voightlander ultron 40mm. Let us know if you need more lens advices. What do al lengths are you interested in?

kiddtech

Jerome A 28mm doesn’t vignette on the Komodo?

zachwolfe

Yesterday I received the Smallrig lightweight Mattebox, which cost the same as the 82-114 ring from Bright Tangerine. To add to that, it comes with 4 adaptor rings (One being the 82-114 I needed). Works absolutely perfectly with the Aiva. I own the Bright tangerine Pola+ and i did a weight comparison, the Smallrig is approx 3 oz’s less than the BT Pola+, also the build quality is pretty incredible for $80.00. I understand the idea behind taking lenses with scopes, what i was hoping to do was to compile a known list of taking lenses people have used on the Aiva specifically. Currently Im using a Helio 44 2 PL Mount with the Aiva for testing and its looking really good. I have the Jupiter 9 and Tair 11 coming soon which will give me 3 focal lengths. I also have a couple Contax C/Y mount lenses I will try as well, will reply to this thread about which ones I used and how they worked. For me I need 3 focal length options to show up to a real job, no Director’s I work with would feel good with only one or two lens options, 3 is the bare minimum. I also need those 3 focal lengths to have the same optical quality, I cant see myself mixing Minoltas with Contax or something else, Need all 3 from same lens/brand family. Also if this helps anyone out Im using all Ignite Digi parts with my RED Komodo and RED Gemini and the 60mm rod holder from Ignite Digi is working at the correct height with the Aivascope Rail Support. To top it off Im using the UURig magnetic filters 82mm from taking lens to Aiva, this way you can create a magnetic seal but keep light leaks out and also allows for quick taking lens changes. Thank you to Oliver from Cinesaga for that tip!

Jerome

zachwolfe Hey Zach, this is all awesome info! OLi from cinesaga is indeed a great guy! Hope to invite him to this forum soon too!
About mixing lenses; yes I feel you! Its a great struggle, and it would help greatly if we could compile a list, as you know many different sensor sizes exist, and many different final aspect ratio’s. It always bothers me on fb groups if people are name dropping their lens focal length and what they can clear. It says nothing, in that regard, since most sensors are not square sized the vertical height is dominant, So if one can name drop its vertical height and final aspect ratio to finish in, a very simple calculation can be made. I am thinking about a simple list with simple numbers which can be multiplied with the crop factor of a certain sensor, for instance a red komodo has a vertical crop factor of 1.69 over a camera with a 24mm sensor height. The fun thing is that it’s much easier to find good taking lenses for s35 inregard to normal aov’s (angle of view), than for large format cameras. You speak about that you need 3 focal lengths on a normal job, which focal lengths would be the right ones, based on shooting with a komodo and the Aivascope? Most anamorphic shooters are always seeking lenses with the biggest amount of iris blades, to have somewhat circular oval bokeh stopted down, but i sometimes think this is a compromising way of looking at that, and it s very hard to find a matched pair of focal lengths like that. Most small footprint lenses with small entrance pupil that go beyond f2.8 are compromised anyhow optically, and stopping down a f1.7 lens to lets say f.4.0 requires a lot more blades to render still kind of circular opposed to a lens thats f2.8 at it’s maximum. The zuiko om lenses are going up in price currently, because they are being rehoused by zero optic, and also arri re-released them as movicam etc. But the 2.8’s are optically almost the same and same buttery coating, all om lenses are great for anamorphic shooting, because of their short length relative to their focal length, and their small entrance pupils, you can mix olympus pen and zuiko om wit ease, yes they have a low aperture blade count, and rehousing the iris blades to a higher count is a no go, but using these 2.8’s wide open or at f4.0 wil yield great bokeh, and sharp images, and super nice balance between vintage and modern characterstics. Dont speak out to loud about this, otherwise they become the net k35 canon fd’s haha. Hope to hear back from you soon, and lets work on a google drive document with a extensive list of taking lenses, and their characterstics and bottlenecks.

kiddtech

zachwolfe Nice setup! I’m curious about the magnetic rings. Do you have one attached to the rear element of the Aiva?

5mars

zachwolfe
Hi, I’m new on the forum and future user of Aivascope. Thanks a lot for all precious informations given here.

Zachwolfe, on your setup, is it ok to not have anything “covering” the part between the taking lens and the Aivascope ? You don’t need a donut or something similar ?

Other question : I’m not sure to understand the use of the magnetic filter. It’s 82mm, so you need to screw it on an adapter filter ? If so, does it means you need to change this adapter for each taking lens ?

or you have also a magnetic adapter ??

I plan to use the Aivascope with Sony FX6 + Malmiya & Leica lenses, this rodes LWS setup seems perfect allowing you to swap lenses easily.

zachwolfe

Jerome, I totally agree that the scope community seems to lack some real concrete info regarding all the various combinations to get a working setup. This is why I would love to contribute to a definitive list, not just for Aivascope but all scope mods. Im approx 3 months into this scope rabbit hole and how cool would it be for someone brand new to be able to look up their camera and then a list of the various taking lenses/scopes that have been proven to work! Both my cameras (RED Gemini & Komodo) are S35 and honestly dont have the need to go FF, and know alot of DP friends who feel the same. Cool thing is since most people in scope land are talking FF i can use as a nice gauge for S35. The 3 focal lengths with Aiva would be 35,50,85 ish. With a full 2x scope im guessing 50,85,100 or 135. Iris blade count doesnt matter to me as much as having 3 lens focal lenghts that will match, that is much more important to me. Oval bokeh is nice and am getting that with the Helios 44 2. The Olympus Zuiko OM or Pen lenses sounds great honestly. What is the best mount to adapt them to EF? I will keep it quiet as im about to buy a few on ebay right now, lol! I also heard the Minolta Rokkor’s are solid as well, what is your opinion on those?

zachwolfe

Just did a test with 3 Contax Lenses: 45mm f2.8 pancake, 50mm Planar f1.4, 85mm f1.4 Planar on my RED Komodo and all worked great! I will say the 85mm had alot of ghosting at f2.8, stopped down to f4 it went away. The 45mm pancake surprised me, it looks pretty nice and its a very tiny lens. I had to use the URTH Contax to EF mount adaptor which works great. The other two lenses im using the simmod brass contax to ef mount which are excellent. The simmod mount does not work on the 45mm due to a different rear element pin that does not come out. Jerome, do you think the Zuiko OM 85mm would work with the Aiva at f2.8?

Jerome

zachwolfe basically and technically the diopter of the aiva is balanced for 50mm mtf , but 80 is still very close expecially if you stop down to 2.8. I have a rest with the zeiss contax g 90mm (you need a special short flame helicoid adapter and a mount like micro fourth thirss to adapt this) its on YouTube, even wide open at 2.8 it yields very good resolving power in combination with the aiva. Reason to this is mostly the very small entrance pupil of this lens which helps greatly when pairing with a anamorphic lens adapter. The zuiko has a small front optic as well! One thing which is paramount when shooting with linger focal lengths is infinity focus calibration. One must get that right, not just by putting the lens in its infinity marker but by collimating it without the scope attaches, it has to be spot on. Zoom in on a very distant object and get it right. But you probably mastered that already🙂. My favourite lenses currently are the zeiss contax g 45 and 90 , sadly no 58 or 75 or something exists. Otherwise it would be a no brained to build a set with these. But they cam be a good match to the bigger zeiss contax, same coating , a bit more sharper but due to size of elements a bit more distortion (especially on the 45)

zachwolfe

Jerome The Contax G lenses are incredible, i have a G with a 3 lens set. Unfortunately im working in EF or RF or PL land. If anyone can figure out how to get these to EF i would die! I did see URTH has a Contax G to RF mount which could be fun to try. Maybe we could get a list of Pentax Zuikos that work with the Aiva, seems like Pentax has alot of variety of choices that work well with most scopes.

kiddtech

Jerome I’ve been looking at the Zuikos, it seems the 35 f/2 has a 55mm front filter thread…will that make it too large for the Aivascope, or could i still use a step down ring without vignetting? For the way I like to shoot spherical, I think i would want my kit to have a 35, 40, 50, and an 85. Seems hard to find an old set that has a 40mm in it with those other focal lengths. But I think i like the look of the old Nikons the best

Gabo

Hello!

What is the maximum front diameter that a taking lens should have in order to fit in Aivascope ?

Thanks

kiddtech

Great thread! I too have the Komodo, and am very interested in little 3-4 lens set to pair with the Aivascope. I like the idea of the Zuikos. I was a big fan of those, had a little set, but a few years back i sold them and started collecting Contax Zeiss. Honestly, I’m not a fan of the Contax. I shot with them for two years and then sold the whole set, and because of the insane popularity, i doubled my profits on those bad boys. I have seen some great footage of the Nikon 50mm f/1.2 when paired with the Aivascope on the Komodo. But I like this idea of the small pancake lenses, I was looking at the Contax 45mm just for this reason. But alas, i am a sucker for the perfect bokeh, so perhaps the russians will be the way to go for me as well. I am brand new to the whole anamorphic world, and i’m mainly jumping on the Aivascope train because I am not impressed by the Sirui’s at all.